The Process of Changing Guitar Strings = Of The Devil

So I like to play the guitar in my spare time. I have this little Crafter travel guitar that I absolutely love. Unfortunately, the strings were beginning to wear down. (I have a lot of spare time.) Actually, they were pretty much… dead – if strings can be classified as dead. All I know is that they were on the verge of snapping at any given moment. I’m supposed to help a friend play a few songs on Friday, so I knew it was time to change the strings. If one of those things snapped in the middle of a song, my friend would be on her own for I’d be standing next to her contemplating my stupidity.

The only problem is that I hate changing guitar strings. Personally, I’ve done it only a couple of times so the fact that I don’t have much practice might be the reason as to why I hate it so much. After making a quick trip to the music store, I began to replace the old, worn strings. I won’t bore you with the details of unwinding, winding, tuning, cutting, and playing. All you need to know is that it took me a long time to do it. By the time I was done, my back was killing me from slumping over the guitar. I’m a perfectionist. Everything had to be right. So after an hour or so of slumping, after giving my hands cramps from turning the tuning pegs, after poking myself a million times with the ends of those stupid strings and having them slap me in the face, my guitar looks and sounds beautiful.

I hope my friend knows what I went through to make sure my end of the bargain was working fine. The things I do for a friend. It’s pathetic, really.

All-Up-In-My-Face-Phobia

I don’t know what it is, but I think that small creatures have it out for me. Last weekend, I was at my grandmother’s. She had asked me to get a package from the front porch. I didn’t think anything of it. You usually don’t expect anything to happen within the 10 seconds it takes to grab a package. I was so incredibly wrong.

 I opened up the door and walked outside. I had it propped open with my foot while I bent down to grab the package. All of a sudden, I heard a big WHOOSH! that was just a little too close to my ear. I quickly turned around to see a bird fly into the house.

“Ohnoohnoohno!” 

I walked back inside very slowly. My grandparents looked at me, puzzled.

“Um… I think I just let a bird in the house.”

There was no thinking to it. I knew that little devil took advantage of my momentary lapse of smart. My very rare moments of stupidity. I just didn’t want to admit it. The worst part is that I hate having things fly around my face. Hence, the title of this post. That little bird would fly around and come at me like a kamikaze pilot.

Needless to say, when something is flying at me at the speed of light, I start to fly a little faster. I was leaping over couches, throwing blankets over my head, and praying that I would be spared. I quickly knew it was a losing battle so I handed a blanket to my grandmother so she could pick it up-they had finally trapped it in a bedroom. I then ran outside. I should note that it was freezing outside and I was in my pajamas, but I didn’t care. I was safe.

They let the bird out the front door and I made my way back inside. I fell on the couch, trying to let my heart settle down. My grandparents certainly got a kick out of watching me leap over the furniture because of a little barn swallow. That’s me. The family comedian.